‘Resource Curse or Cure? Reforming Liberia’s governance and logging industry’
A policy briefing submitted by Global Witness to the UN Security Council, 14 September 2004
‘Resource Curse or Cure? Reforming Liberia’s governance and logging industry’- A policy briefing submitted by Global Witness to the UN Security Council, 14 September 2004
Recommendations -
The UN Security Council (UNSC) should:
· Maintain the current embargo on the export and transport of Liberian timber, and its import into other countries. The embargo should remain in place until it can be demonstrated that the Liberian timber trade does not contribute to national and regional insecurity, and meets the requirements of Security Council Resolution 1521 (2003) for the lifting of sanctions.
· Ensure that a complete independent, retrospective and internationally verifiable audit of the Liberian logging industry and Liberian government finances is undertaken as a priority, looking to both improve accounting systems and identify the manners by which revenue was previously misappropriated.
· Consider applying restrictions to individuals or governments found to be financially or militarily supporting armed non-state actors in Liberia and the region.
The United Nations Mission in Liberia (UNMIL) should:
· Place priority on helping the Liberian government secure control over Liberia’s lucrative natural resources, and further assess and monitor any existing and likely cross-border land, air and sea-based smuggling routes.
· Consider extending the Disarmament, Demobilisation Reintegration and Rehabilitation (DDRR) mandate, to ensure that the process is carried out to its fullest extent, successfully disarming and rehabilitating all ex-combatants.
· Coordinate with other UN peacekeeping forces and national militaries in the region, to create more effective border security and prevent the cross-border trafficking.
The international community should:
· As a matter of priority, ensure that shortfalls in the UNMIL and aid agency budgets are addressed by donors, and that those groups are provided with the financial and logistical support that they require to fulfil their mandates.
· Ensure that all countries enforce the Liberian arms embargo, and further adhere to the ECOWAS Moratorium on the Import, Export and Manufacture of Small Arms and Light Weapons.
· Mainstream environmental impact and ethical purchasing concerns into all UN, NTGL and NGO activities in Liberia.
The National Transitional Government of Liberia (NTGL) should:
· Develop socially, economically and environmentally sustainable forest use strategies, and empower the Forestry Development Authority (FDA) and other relevant agencies to implement them.
· Ensure that the FDA is reformed to establish comprehensive and transparent accounting systems and that sufficient oversight mechanisms are put in place.
· Deploy government representatives throughout the country, staffing offices properly and providing adequate logistical, law enforcement and financial support.
· Appoint an independent monitor to monitor the logging industry and provide independent verification of the reform process’ progress.
· Monitor the relationship between the logging industry and local populations, in order to identify, prosecute and prevent future violations of domestic forest use and human rights laws, and sever any links between the Liberian logging industry and destabilising non-state actors.
Acronyms
DDRR / Disarmament, Demobilisation, Reconciliation and Reintegration programmeFDA / Forestry Development Authority
IDP / Internally Displaced Person
LURD / Liberians United for Reconciliation and Democracy
MODEL / Movement for Democracy in Liberia
NTGL / National Transitional Government of Liberia
SRSG / Special Representative of the Secretary-General
UN / United Nations
UNHCR / United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees
UNMIL / United Nations Mission in Liberia
UNAMSIL / United Nations Mission in Sierra Leone
Executive Summary
The Liberian logging industry is still a threat to regional peace and security, as the Liberian government has not made any significant progress toward securing its territory or natural resources, and armed combatants maintain control over much of the interior, important timber-rich regions and key border crossing points. As Liberia is not in compliance with the requirements for lifting sanctions as set forth in Security Council Resolution 1521, timber sanctions should remain in place at the upcoming October sanctions review.
Liberia has not met key standards set by the UN for the lifting of sanctions. The NTGL has established little authority outside of Monrovia, key border crossing points are under the control of armed non-state actors, and the financial and accounting systems necessary to ensure a fully functioning, transparent and accountable government are not in place. Moreover, important natural resource-rich areas remain under armed occupation, and the necessary reforms of the Forestry Development Authority (FDA), the government agency responsible for oversight of Liberia’s logging industry, have yet to be completed.
Lifting sanctions now, before such fundamental issues are resolved, would seriously jeopardise Liberia’s nascent recovery and run counter to the Security Council’s own aims of securing long-term peace and prosperity for the region. As Global Witness[1] and UN Panel of Expert Reports[2] have shown, the logging industry has historically been a source of extra-budgetary revenue and logistics that has fuelled conflict in the region. The UN Security Council imposed timber sanctions to cut off funding for warring parties, and determined that they were to be left in place until the government can ensure timber revenue is no longer be used to fuel conflict. Given the government’s lack of control of key resources and inability to effectively monitor its logging industry as it exists even under UN sanctions, the logging industry still poses a threat to international peace and security and the sanctions on Liberian timber must remain in place.
· The Liberian government does not have control over its natural resources.
NTGL authority does not extend from Monrovia, and the government is not yet able to control its borders or its forests due to a lack of resources and security. Former rebel fighters from the Movement for Democracy in Liberia (MODEL), which control much of the southeast and border with Cote d’Ivoire, have taken control of Sapo National Park, where they are mining gold and hunting bushmeat. Former fighters from the rebel group Liberians United for Reconciliation and Democracy (LURD), which are in control of the north of the country and key border crossings to Guinea and Sierra Leone, have taken control of Guthrie Rubber Plantation, the country’s second largest (see Section 1. Uncontrolled Risks: How the government’s lack of authority over natural resources is threatening regional security., page 6).
· Former MODEL and LURD fighters control key border crossing points and extort money from travellers.
Former LURD and MODEL fighters continue to exert much control over the key border crossing points, including those to Sierra Leone, at the Mano River Bridge, and to Guinea, at Ganta, extorting money from travellers as ‘customs duties’. This lack of border security makes it impossible to stem the cross-border trade in weapons, natural resources and mercenaries that has historically fuelled instability in Liberia and the region. The government has only deployed limited numbers of immigration officers to a few border crossings, but those who are deployed lack uniforms and basic transport and communication equipment (see Section 1. Uncontrolled Risks: How the government’s lack of authority over natural resources is threatening regional security., page 6).
· Large scale ‘pit sawing’ continues across the country without government oversight, with evidence suggesting some timber is being exported to Guinea in violation of UN sanctions.
‘Pit sawing’, the localised felling and processing of trees using chainsaws as compared to large scale logging company machinery, continues across the country outside adequate FDA or NTGL oversight. There are continued reports that timber harvested by former LURD fighters in Lofa County is crossing the border into Guinea, in clear violation of the UN embargo on timber (see Section 1. Uncontrolled Risks: How the government’s lack of authority over natural resources is threatening regional security., page 6).
· The FDA still operates with inadequate transparency and accountability, with many fundamental reforms yet to be completed.
Key reforms of finance and accounting issues within the FDA have not been completed. The European Union (EU) will not undertake a vital in-depth audit of the FDA’s finances and accounting capacity, which was to lay much of the groundwork for future reforms, and an important independent concession review has been postponed indefinitely due to lack of funding and logistics. Moreover, the FDA does not have the staff to adequately monitor current industry activities, and has recently issued, and then cancelled, contracts for various logging activities through a non-transparent process. (see Section 2. Short of the Mark: Fundamental reforms of the FDA and NTGL have yet to be completed., page 8).
· There is still insufficient transparency and accountability within the NTGL, with a particular lack of public disclosure regarding large natural resource deals.
Fundamental issues of accountability, transparency and oversight remain to be addressed by the NTGL. The Special Representative of the Secretary-General (SRSG) to Liberia, referred to the NTGL as a ‘coalition of the unwilling’[3], and UN officials and relief workers have complained that, ‘key ministries have been hijacked by the three former warring factions - busy helping themselves to the little money that flow into government coffers.”[4] The lack of public disclosure regarding recent sales of natural resources is particularly worrying, and underlines the continued need for a more transparent and accountable decision-making process within the government. For example, there are questions regarding the procedures followed by the NTGL when it entered into an agreement with a Chinese company, the Qingdao Trading Group Corporation, to export 800,000 cubic metres of iron ore worth an estimated US$10 million[5]. A group of Liberian NGOs argue that the government did not have the right to sell the iron ore stockpile, and that any such agreement had to be agreed through the national legislature. The group first sent a formal request for clarification to the Liberian government on 23 August, but having received no reply[6], filed a legal challenge with the Supreme Court calling for a stay on all exports until the issue could be resolved[7]. The Supreme Court responded on 27 August, ordering that there be no further shipments until a decision was made at a conference scheduled for 3 September[8]; at that conference the Supreme Court determined that the order should remain in place pending a further decision to be made by the Court in October (see Section 3. ‘Coalition of the unwilling’: The NTGL’s continued lack of organisation, transparency and accountability., page 9).
· The internal security situation remains extremely volatile.
While the deployment of UNMIL has had an improvement on the safety of civilians in areas under its direct control, many areas are infrequently or never patrolled. There remain persistent reports of harassment of civilians by former LURD and MODEL soldiers, and many IDPs and refugees are reluctant to return to their home communities for fear of further attacks and harassment (see Section 4. Against the Tide: How design problems and financial shortfalls are undermining the DDRR process., page 10).
· The DDRR process faces significant logistical and financial constraints that threaten to undermine its success.
The UN’s DDRR process, which is critical to regional efforts for peace, has registered over 66,000 combatants, yet has recovered only 20,000 weapons, reinforcing fears that weapons have been stockpiled or moved into Cote d’Ivoire and Guinea. Recent changes to combat this discrepancy may in fact deny many combatants of critical education and resettlement support. UNMIL has also not adequately addressed the needs of foreign combatants, whose ultimate access to rehabilitation training or education is unclear. Slow donor payment compounds the problem, which has left the UNHCR unable to properly care for IDPs and forced the World Food Programme (WFP) to cut its food aid to 2/3 of normal levels. Such shortfalls have led in part to rioting in some areas by ex-combatants, and if not addressed may lead to further instability and undermining of the peace and reconstruction process (see Section 4. Against the Tide: How design problems and financial shortfalls are undermining the DDRR process., page 10).
Introduction
Liberia has taken important steps toward facilitating its recovery from 14 years of civil war, and with the aid of the international community has been slowly moving to transform itself from a failed state into a stable and democratic country with an accountable government. Some governmental institutions have been reformed, civil society is rebuilding, the UN has deployed 15,000 peacekeepers as part of UNMIL, and the UN’s Disarmament Demobilisation Rehabilitation and Reintegration (DDRR) process continues to take weapons out of circulation and provide important education and work opportunities to former combatants. Moreover, the presence of numerous humanitarian aid agencies has had a definite improvement on the situation, with outbreaks of fighting significantly reduced, regular UNMIL patrols allowing a freer flow of movement along major transport routes and the availability of food and medical assistance greatly improving the lives of Liberians.
Still, fundamental issues integral to ending the link between natural resources and conflict in Liberia remain to be addressed. The government is still unable to control its territory, as most areas outside of Monrovia are still under the control of armed non-state actors, and the continued lack of transparency and accountability in the Liberian government and logging industry means that it cannot be ensured that industry revenue will not further future insecurity. Moreover, there is the current problem of unregulated ‘pit sawing’, as logging activities are taking place across the country in the absence of contracts, FDA monitoring and a functional legal system. Combined with the control of key border crossings by former LURD and MODEL fighters, this means that non-state actors maintain their access to timber and other natural resources, as well as to the logistics with which to engage in cross-border trafficking of weapons and mercenaries. Having invested so much in the reconstruction of Liberia, and recognising that the process is both a long-term endeavour and critical to the stability of the entire region, it is vital that the UN does not move to lift sanctions prematurely, as doing so would undermine the progress toward peace made thus far in the region.
Section 1. Uncontrolled Risks: How the government’s lack of authority over natural resources is threatening regional security.
Given the historical link between natural resource exploitation and conflict in Liberia and the region, control of key natural resource areas by non-state forces could quickly undermine the peace process and fuel further conflict. While the deployment of UNMIL has increased the safety of residents in areas under its direct authority, much of the country is still outside either UN or NTGL management, meaning that key natural resource-rich areas are still under the control of former MODEL and LURD fighters. When combined with their control of key border crossings, armed non-state actors maintain their capacity to traffic natural resources, weapons and mercenaries across borders.